> Step by step

2. Modular house groove with B-Step CM’s advanced features

1 Let’s explore B-Step CM’s advanced functions. Load Modular House.wav on an audio track in a new 125bpm project, with D16 Frontier on the master bus. Add Bazille CM on an instrument track, click Patches, then right-click 00 User and select Reveal in Finder/Explorer – copy the supplied tutorial patch Modular House.h2p into the folder. In Bazille CM, right-click 00 User, hit Refresh, then load Modular House from the 00 User folder. 2 We’re using Cubase, so we add another MIDI instrument track with B-Step CM, set the Bazille CM track’s MIDI input to B-Step’s MIDI output, and enable its Monitor button. Now click the Chord Set pencil tool, then F minor to give us the

G# notes F, and C. Set Preset Target to Chord 5 and click G to make that one a G major chord. Close the Chord Editor and set all steps’ Step Duration to 1/16. 3 Program the pattern shown above (including Step Duration and Velocity), turning up the C3 dial to C4, and F2 down to F1, for a wider note range. Click the Step tab down the left-hand side to expand the Step panel with further controls. Step Chord changes the chord only for a selected step. On step 15, set Step Chord to 5, then click the Use Step Chord button for that step to activate it. Now we hear a G chord, but only on that step. 4 Step Octave shifts individual steps – it’s a foolproof way to add variety. Step Delay offsets timing – try delaying step 4 by 1/96 or 1/48 to add a tiny drag to the groove. Step Copy and Step Clear are hangovers from earlier versions, and there are now easier ways to accomplish both. To copy a step, right-drag in the runlight at the very top, as shown, and to reset a step, drag the rubber icon from the right-hand strip onto the Runlight. 5 See those tiny stars in the lower-left of B-Step CM’s interface? These enable the intermediate and advanced pages – click the ‘ five star’ one to enable all the extra tabs. Try Bar first. Step Probability sets the likelihood that step’s notes will be played – set all steps except the first one to 33% for an unpredictable groove that’s different nearly every time. Set them back to 100% when you’re done trying it. 6 Restart Pos makes the sequence reset when it reaches that step – enable it for steps 4 and 13 as shown, and see how B-Step CM jumps back to step 1 right after each, rearranging our riff on the fly. The sequence doesn’t have to return to the start when it repeats – enable Start Pos on step 9, then 13, and finally 15, for a familiar dance “repeating fill” effect. Turn off the Restart Pos and Start Pos controls when you’re done. 7 Step Mute’s function is obvious, but Step Skip is different, causing the sequence to jump directly to the next nonskipped note. Try skipping bars 4 and 8, giving us a 7/8 rhythm. Now switch it off – chances are, the rhythm is now playing off the beat. To fix this without stopping playback, enable Force Pos2Beat for step 1, which causes the sequencer to resync, with this step as the beat’s ‘one’. 8 The Seq # tab houses settings for all 16 sequences. Play Reverse does what you’d expect. <<steps>>, meanwhile, offsets the notes (but not any other perstep settings) of the sequence, creating cool variations on our pattern. The remaining Seq # settings come into play with multiple sequences, which we’re not covering here, but you can always drag the ? onto any of them to find out more. 9 Rep 1 and Rep 2 let you repeat steps. Mute all steps but 1 and 7, then crank Step Repeats to full to make step 7 play eight times. Set the first echo’s timing with Rpt Interval, and control repeats with Rpt Int. Offset and Rpt Duration Offs. Rep 2 lets you offset velocity, note played and even create an up/down arpeggio. The CC PC page sends MIDI CCs – sequence MIDI CC1 to hear its effect on our patch.